Thursday, July 10, 2014

Welcome to Build 18522, Ladies and Gentlemen, where suddenly there's a METRIC CRAPTON of new Garrisons Achievements. I won't have a chance to play today for a couple of hours, but it appears there's been quite a lot of work on rewarding people for staying in Blizzard's new feature, at least in terms of raking in some points for completing tasks. There are categories for Missions, Followers, Buildings and Levelling... plus the introduction of INVASIONS as a 'thing.'

The fact your Invasions will have a three tier difficulty level is already enough to fill me with a sense of unerring dread. I'm not a big fan of Blizzard's in-game 'tasks', as a rule. In fact, I'm actually a bit scared RIGHT NOW. I blame the Argent Tournament.

Jousting. Yuk.

I suppose, if I'm honest, it began with Bombing Runs in TBC. The co-ordination required to both fly and fling would often reduce me to a quivering, frustrated mess, and many of the timed achievements that were introduced eluded me for quite some time after they were current. Then we got jousting and I can recall the anger that rose when I tried to co-ordinate everything that was required. It has taken me since Wrath to grasp the technique with confidence. With Proving Grounds I've not actually tried anything past Bronze but as we're using the Bronze/Silver/Gold 'levels' as our benchmark here, I suppose it might be a plan to get the learning braincells working again...

Of course, we have no idea what *exactly* these tasks will involve, but the Achievements themselves can shine some light on what is going to be expected from you as Commander:

Everybody hates me ^^

I count SEVEN different types of invader in that list, all of which (presumably) will have specialist abilities you'll need to counter. More importantly, you'll get extra points for ensuring no buildings are damaged in the particular incursions. If the 'invasions' all follow the same pattern this shouldn't be too much of an issue, but I doubt Blizzard would be that predictable. This is going to be an interesting part of proceedings. It is also going to, I suspect, be a part of the game many players simply won't want a part of, especially those hoping to have a place they can customise rather than having to defend. If you wanted proof positive that this wasn't Animal Crossing in Azeroth, then here we go. I can also see people getting really frustrated when they only need an Ogre incursion to completed the 'Master of Invasions' achievement and all that attacks them are Primals... ^^

I have the new beta build downloaded. Once I'm back from exercise this morning I'll dive in, and we'll see what has changed elsewhere. Expect a report to follow shortly afterwards :D